Winning Poems for the Nature in Verse: 2025 Poetry Contest
- 04/15/2025
- 15:46
- maureen
First Place: Adult Category
haiku
by D.A. Xiaolin Spires
webbed feet squelch
a crane couple honks in unison
montezuma’s swamp breathes good morning
First Place: Teen Category
Montezuma Wildlife Refuge
by Lily Ridley
The tall beige grasses flow like rivers in the chilly April breeze
they bend and sway gracefully like ballet dancers.
The ripples in the pond stroll to the same beat,
like churchgoers on a sunday afternoon.
Above, in the vast blue sky, an osprey beats her wings
in sync with the howls of the cars passing by.
She rests her sharpened talons in the branches of her nest,
and the chirping of her newborns welcomes her home.
Resting in a tree that’s still regrowing its leaves from the winter,
is a small white butterfly, still damp from her freshly abandoned chrysalis.
She fans out her freshly developed wings,
soaking them in the magnificent yellow sunlight.
First Place: Children’s Category
haiku
by Oksana Peck
Hoopes Park. A clear pond.
The sound of water splashing,
As green frogs jump in.
Second Place: Adult Category
Thin Places
by Anthony F. Gero
The ancient Celtics did believe, in thin places,
often by the sea.
A place where a slim line could be,
where one could almost touch upon a vision,
a mystery.
It might occur in morning’s early light,
when between earth and sky a low mist can appear
at crack of light in an Owasco Lake’s dawn.
It might be upon Denali’s Alaskan high plain,
or in Ionia by the sea,
finding there, as ancient Celtics did believe,
a thin place with some measure of mystic serenity.
Second Place: Teen Category
Migration
by Mitchell Homick
Against the path I’ve walked until eighteen,
Seasons change and churn—but that gazebo stays,
Pond maintained, benches remain. Hoopes, have you seen?
Mark it, scene: a boy walking, growing in ways
That beat against the stone bridge; that each walk,
When facing his algae’d reflection, only the background lays.
I fear the day I can’t stalk;
The day I migrate like those bread-fed ducks, pain
To leave my formative flock.
But Hoopes—I know I’ll walk around and again,
For I know you, you’re constant, but changed.
Hear me, Hoopes: I am a duck named Cain.
Second Place: Children’s Category
DOMINOS
by Emma Mirabito
Dominos have specks as white as a flower with power when they fall and
when they fall they make a little sound that makes you proud.
And when it’s in the case you wait till next time and when it’s time, you
make a rhyme again.
Next time will be more fun because you do it with your sister!